Content area
Full Text
Introduction
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, downtowns or central business districts (CBDs) housed the retail and services core of US cities. Thus, urban retailing was integral to a city's economic and social climate ([10] Hernandez and Jones, 2005). However, following the Second World War, the economic and social stability of CBDs began to decline, and many retailers abandoned their downtown locations for the suburbs. Starting in the 1960s, a few downtown revitalization projects that incorporated urban retailing were initiated to attract shoppers back to the CBD but have produced mixed results in stimulating urban retail development, consumer traffic, and sales ([16] Robertson, 1997; [23] West and Orr, 2003). In many other revitalization projects, urban retail development has been ignored ([21] Warnaby et al. , 2004).
Academic and practitioner experts advocate that urban retail development encourages consumers to patronize a CBD's recreational, social, and business activities thereby providing added support for both its economy and social well-being ([16] Robertson, 1997; [21] Warnaby et al. , 2004). While there is considerable research on rejuvenation of downtown areas (e.g. public buildings, neighborhoods, and business improvement districts), much research consists of descriptive information from case studies of individual cities. Systematic information on integrating successful urban retail development with CBD redevelopment is very limited ([14] Lopilato, 2003). Moreover, since the mid-1980s, academic research on urban retailing has been limited ([16] Robertson, 1997; [20] Warnaby et al. , 2002; [24] Whyte, 1988).
Considering both the paucity of research and potential economic and social benefits to be gained from incorporating urban retailing within broader CBD revitalization efforts, this research provides an exploratory examination of urban retailing and CBD redevelopment strategies employed by six Western US CBDs. One study objective was to explore each CBD's urban retail marketing and management strategies. A second objective was to examine the role played by urban retailers in assisting stakeholders to plan and/or implement other revitalization strategies comprising each CBD's broader economic redevelopment efforts. Underlying both objectives was a goal to examine which strategies were associated with positive outcomes for both CBDs and urban retailing.
Urban retail development
Historical overview
The growth of CBDs and downtown retailing in the USA in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was aided by business development and...